Dental Billing Career Outlook

Dec 04, 2008

Dental billing is an important part of the dental support services. Dental support also includes dental hygienists and dental assistants. Taking care of the patients, laboratory, office, and clerical duties are the responsibilities of dental assistants. Their main responsibilities include managing patients. Communication and interpersonal skills are an important requirement for dental assistants. If you like working with people, this could be the fun and rewarding career you've been looking for.

Career Outlook for Dental Billing

More and more assistants are gaining skills while studying in community and two-year colleges, technical programs, and trade schools.

More and more dental offices are seeking dental assistants with formal training to work in their offices because they are more likely to pick up the responsibilities of the job requirements more easily, be more reliable, and work well with a team.

Dental Billing Course Curriculum

Dental billing students learn to use ICD-9CM, CPT-4, HCPCS, and PDR

Learn to understand common insurance policies and terminology

Understand government insurance

Learn medical and dental terminology and common abbreviations

Increase awareness of common diseases and disorders and an understanding of the different body systems

Learn about basic anatomy

Gain a clear understanding of the laws, ethics and HIPPA regulations

Encourage excellent communication skills

The course structure includes lectures, labs and an internship where students obtain first hand experience with dental billing procedures.

Certificate Course for Dental Assistant or Dental Billing

Other programs teach dental billing as only one part of their entire curriculum. The goal is to earn a certificate in dental administration. The course includes:

Dental terminology and anatomy

Dental billing

How to manage patient scheduling

Diagnostic coding

Liaison with the insurance company.

To further prepare dental assistants to perform dental billing duties, there are a number of dental billing software programs available online. Having a person specially trained with an firm understanding of dental billing office procedures and a comprehensive understanding of the insurance industry, human anatomy, laws, and ethics is much more valuable.

Career Outlook for Dental Billing

As with medical billing, dental billing is projected to be among the fastest growing fields in the healthcare industry. Insurance companies and the government are beginning to spend more money and effort to investigate and control incidents of insurance fraud and abuse. This is one of the reasons why insurance companies, hospitals, dentists, doctors, pharmacies, and other providers will be recruiting additional medical and dental billers.

Dental billing candidates with the right experience and training will be more important than ever to help companies prevent legal problems due to incorrect billing. Dental billing professionals can, in some instances, become self-employed by using their dental billing and administrative skills to establish their own business and provide dental billing services to a variety of dental offices.